Which to use
“burglar” and “burglary” are a confusable English pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #18,510
- “burglar” frequency rank
- #16,186
- “burglary” frequency rank
- 34696
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | burglar | burglary |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | A person who breaks in to premises with the intent of committing theft. | The crime of unlawfully breaking into a vehicle, house, store, or other enclosure with the intent to steal. |
Where the eye mixes burglar and burglary
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 7 letters in sequence. burglar runs 7 letters (CVCCCVC) against burglary's 8 (CVCCCVCV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.
Look-alike desk: burglar vs burglary
A purely visual mix-up. burglar (/ˈbɜːɡlə(ɹ)/) and burglary (/ˈbɜː.ɡlə.ɹi/) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they differ by 1 extra letter(s) - “burglar” sits inside “burglary”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 34696, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
burglar is recorded at frequency rank #18,510, classified as anoun, pronounced /ˈbɜːɡlə(ɹ)/. burglary is at rank #16,186, tagged as anoun, pronounced /ˈbɜː.ɡlə.ɹi/.
Glosses for this pair are partially populated in our dataset, but the full side-by-side definitions above should still guide you to the right choice.
With a confusion score of 34696, this pair ranks #318,522 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.
Orthographic DNA of burglar vs burglary
Shared letters: abglru. Private to "burglar": -. Private to "burglary": y.
"burglar" · 7 letters · shape CVCCCVC · "burglary" · 8 letters · shape CVCCCVCV
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Do "burglar" and "burglary" mean the same thing in a sentence?
In ordinary English text, does "burglar" or "burglary" show up more?
What to do next
Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.
- Full dictionary entry for "burglar" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "burglary" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #318,522 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "burglar" and "burglary" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "burglary vs bursary". Nearby pair
- Recorded mistypes exist for at least one side of this pair, useful when a spell-checker or OCR lands on the wrong form. See mistypes
Confusion rank #318,522 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.